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Partial Valuation Structures for Qualitative Soft Constraints

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Software, Services, and Systems

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 8950))

Abstract

Soft constraints have proved to be a versatile tool for the specification and implementation of decision making in adaptive systems. A plethora of formalisms have been devised to capture different notions of preference. Wirsing et al. have proposed partial valuation structures as a unifying algebraic structure for several soft constraint formalisms, including quantitative and qualitative ones, which, in particular, supports lexicographic products in a broad range of cases. We demonstrate the versatility of partial valuation structures by integrating the qualitative formalism of constraint relationships as well as the hybrid concept of constraint hierarchies. The latter inherently relies on lexicographic combinations, but it turns out that not all can be covered directly by partial valuation structures. We therefore investigate a notion for simulating partial valuation structures not amenable to lexicographic combinations by better suited ones. The concepts are illustrated by a case study in decentralized energy management.

This research is partly sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the project “OC-Trust” (FOR 1085).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, University of Augsburg, Germany

    Alexander Schiendorfer, Alexander Knapp, Jan-Philipp Steghöfer, Gerrit Anders, Florian Siefert & Wolfgang Reif

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  1. Alexander Schiendorfer
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  2. Alexander Knapp
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  3. Jan-Philipp Steghöfer
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  4. Gerrit Anders
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  5. Florian Siefert
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  6. Wolfgang Reif
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Piazza S. Francesco, 19, 55100, Lucca, Italy

    Rocco De Nicola

  2. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

    Rolf Hennicker

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Schiendorfer, A., Knapp, A., Steghöfer, JP., Anders, G., Siefert, F., Reif, W. (2015). Partial Valuation Structures for Qualitative Soft Constraints. In: De Nicola, R., Hennicker, R. (eds) Software, Services, and Systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8950. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15545-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15545-6_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15544-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15545-6

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